Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded to AMC's criticism on CNBC, stating that once a publicly traded company's stock is available for trading, other institutions have the right to issue financial products referencing those stocks without needing automatic permission from the issuer.

He mentioned that while issuers control their own stock's rights and obligations, they cannot control other companies from issuing securities that reference that stock. Robinhood's stock tokens are issued by an independent entity, backed one-to-one by the underlying stock, providing economic exposure without voting rights, and are structured similarly to ADRs, ETFs, and structured notes. The products are issued by Robinhood Assets in Jersey, positioned as tokenized debt securities primarily for non-U.S. persons, with documentation stating that holders do not have legal or beneficial ownership rights in the referenced company.

AMC CEO Adam Aron referred to it as a fake market and synthetic equity last week, demanding a halt to trading and threatening to submit a complaint to the SEC. Robinhood's Chief Legal Officer and former SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher responded that they would not halt trading. Tenev stated that tokenization distributes U.S. stocks to over 120 countries, and trading volume increased after the launch of Robinhood Chain. Token holders do not have shareholder status, and dividends are processed through on-chain multipliers.

The dispute revolves around three models: on-chain securities signed by the issuer, regulated custodial one-to-one tokens, and third-party debt packaging. The consent rights depend on whether the product is indeed the stock itself.

Mechanically, this is a struggle for distribution rights: brokerages package publicly traded stocks for 24-hour trading, while public companies aim to maintain their shareholder registry and voting rights narrative. The beneficiaries are token platforms that can sell exposure outside the U.S.; the pressured parties are issuers worried about synthetic trading diverting attention but unable to prevent publicly traded stocks from being referenced. Funds are locked between on-chain packaging and underlying custodial accounts, not automatically entering the company's treasury.

Tenev framed consent as a product structure issue, not a matter of courtesy. If regulators equate debt packaging with the shares themselves, this defense would be rewritten.

Source: Public Information